Baseball

Petosa Headlines Five Felician All-Tourney Selections

Joe Petosa was named the MVP of the 2014 CACC Baseball Tournament. (Ellen O'Brien)

May 12, 2014

RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Felician College graduate student Joe Petosa (Spotswood, N.J./Spotswood) was named the Most Valuable Player of the 2014 Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (CACC) Baseball Tournament, held last Thursday through Saturday in New Castle, Del.

Felician, the No. 2 seed, captured its first CACC baseball championship by winning all three of its games in the event, including an 8-3 victory over top seed, tournament host and No. 11 nationally-ranked Wilmington (Del.) University in Saturday's championship game. Petosa, the team's No. 4 hitter and left fielder, went 3 for 4 on Saturday with two doubles and two RBI. His run-scoring double in the sixth inning broke a 2-2 tie and made him Felician's all-time hits leader, surpassing the 217 of former teammate Mickey Zudonyi.

For the tournament, Petosa was 6 for 12, plus three walks, scored four runs, and drove in five. He knocked in two runs in Felician's 3-2 first-round victory over Post University on Thursday. The honor capped a whirlwind 10 days for Petosa, during which he was also named first-team Capital One Academic All-District, first-team All-CACC, and the Felician Senior Male Student-Athlete of the Year.

Joining Petosa on the CACC All-Tournament team were senior shortstop Aaron Brill (West Palm Beach, Fla./John I. Leonard), sophomore first-baseman Scott De Jong (North Haledon, N.J./Eastern Christian), senior third-baseman Jordan Tackett (Fredericksburg, Va./Stafford) and junior left-handed pitcher Jerry Vasto (Atlantic Highlands, N.J./Henry Hudson Regional). Brill, the CACC Player of the Year for the regular season, came up with a two-out, two-run single in the bottom of the ninth inning to tie the score in an eventual 10-9, 10-inning victory over Dominican (N.Y.) College on Friday.

Brill was 6 for 14 in the three games, scoring five runs and driving in two. He handled 13 errorless chances at shortstop.

De Jong, an All-CACC First Team honoree, was on base 10 times in the tournament, going 7 for 12 with two doubles and five runs scored.

Tackett drove in the game-winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning against Dominican on Friday. He also had an RBI in Felician's four-run sixth inning against Wilmington in Saturday's championship round.

Vasto, the regular-season CACC Pitcher of the Year, had a strong outing in a no-decision against Dominican on Friday. In six innings, he allowed one run on four hits, walked two batters, and matched a career-high with 11 strikeouts. He ran his season strikeout total to a school-record 79, breaking the mark of 76 set by Brian Dudzinski in 2012.